by Natasha Ngan
‘I need you to come with me.’
‘Why?’ Senior Surrey’s hand moved behind his back. It was just a fleeting gesture, but Butterfly knew that he’d taken hold of a gun by the tightness in his arm.
Butterfly lifted his own gun. ‘There’s something I want you to see.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t go with you. I’m waiting for somebody.’
‘Ember? She won’t be coming.’
Something flickered in Senior Surrey’s eyes. ‘You have her?’
Butterfly nodded.
‘Will she be coming back?’ Senior Surrey didn’t add what Butterfly knew he meant; will she be coming back alive?
‘I doubt it,’ Butterfly answered quietly.
Senior Surrey glanced away. Butterfly moved forward, ready for a fight, but when Senior Surrey looked back at him there was such sad defeat in his eyes that Butterfly faltered.
‘If I come with you,’ Senior Surrey said, taking the gun from behind his back and handing it to Butterfly, ‘will you spare her?’
And just like that, Butterfly realised suddenly what was going on; Senior Surrey loved Ember. For some reason, the realisation made Butterfly hate him even more. How could anyone who knew what it felt like to love do the things he had done?
‘Will you spare her?’ Senior Surrey asked again.
‘Yes,’ Butterfly lied.
Silver and Joza ran out of the Stacks into murky afternoon light. They crouched down behind a line of trees at the side of the road to catch their breath. The sky was glaringly grey, the fierce whiteness of the hidden sun threatening at the paint-like edges of the clouds, and Silver could smell oncoming rain in the air.
The Council District was almost empty now. Some of the buildings looked as though they had been bombed, fire flickering from their empty windows, smoke curling from their tops. From far away came the deep chugging thud of smallbombs, muted but still strong even at this distance. Silver felt their impact in her bones. A slow, rolling shudder that made her sick with worry.
‘Where are our parents?’ she asked Joza.
‘They’re with Percie’s team,’ he said, touching her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be safe with her.’
Silver flinched as what sounded like a grenade went off nearby. Shouts rose up, a few cries. She craned her head to look round the trees at the source of the noise. Smoke billowed up the broad avenue of Noda Parkway, rolling slowly towards them.
‘The fight’s coming this way,’ he said. ‘Everyone has orders to come here after they’ve finished with their diversions. We’re going to secure the Council District. Do you –’
There was a sudden flash of brilliant, blinding white. Silver felt the ground lift beneath her as she was thrown into the air, crashing down amid a cloud of smoke. For a few moments, her mind struggled to grasp what was happening. Lights danced and whirled in front of her eyes. She gasped for breath, winded by the fall. Then, through the whirling grey smoke and ash, she saw masked soldiers running towards her, and her brain clicked back into place.
She scrambled up, pulling the gun from her belt. The soldiers fell as her bullets hit their legs, but more were coming, too many for her to overcome, and she turned, running back up the steps towards the Stacks.
The tall atrium was deserted. Silver ducked behind the reception desk, her breathing so loud she pressed a hand over her mouth, terrified someone would hear her. The noises of battle reached her from outside. She thought about Joza out there, and Butterfly, and her mother and father, and even Taiyo and Allum, who had been her friends once. She wasn’t sure what they were now.
Crouching there in the dark space behind the desk, she thought about staying hidden, about waiting here for the battle to be over. Immediately, she felt disgusted at herself. After everything she had seen, after everything she had been through, how could she be a coward now? Silver’s own parents were out there fighting. Her mother, who usually spent her job as a nurse healing people. Her father, who couldn’t even bring himself to kill a fly. And there were hundreds of Ghosts and Pigeons out there risking their lives for the futures of others.
She could hear Ember’s voice sneering, You see, Silver? You’re not an Elite. Your DNA is worthless. You’re nothing.
‘I’m not nothing,’ she said loudly.
Silver knew she wasn’t an Elite now, but what she’d realised was that didn’t make her worse than an Elite. It made her better than one. She was just a normal Red girl whose blood was filled with a fierce fire to protect the people she loved and save her city from the cruelness of others. She might be ordinary, but right now that was the most empowering thing in the world.
She remembered feeling ashamed of her ethnicity back in Leanor and Emeli’s house the night before the Purge, and being surprised at how a Mainlander like Percie had married her Red brother. How stupid she had been. The Council had got it wrong. No, Neo-Babel’s founders had got it wrong all those years ago when the city was first created. A person’s DNA shouldn’t dictate their lives. Skin-tone, genetics; how could any of those things decide what a person could become? That sort of thinking only bred hatred and created people like Ember who thought science had proven that their races were superior, and Reds like Silver weren’t worth a thing.
But science had done nothing of the sort; it was people who had used science to turn their prejudices into justifications. And it was time those people were stopped.
Silver knew what she had to do. Raising her gun, she stepped out from behind the desk and ran back outside into the roar of gunshots.
40
A New Neo
The far western edge of the city was quiet. Not silent; noises from the battle drifted across on the smoke-tinted air, and there were soft rumbling tremors through the ground. But it was quiet all the same. The battle seemed to be concentrated in the Council District and eastern half of the inner city, leaving the western side clear of fighting. Some people had gathered on the streets to watch the battle from afar, but most took cover inside their homes, so when Butterfly slowed the motorbike to a halt, stepping off it with a gun aimed at Senior Surrey’s head, no one confronted them.
‘Get off,’ Butterfly ordered.
He had stolen the motorbike from a street in the Council District, and he’d used it to bring Senior Surrey to the waterfall at the edge of the city. He’d get back to the battle as soon as he could, but there was something he had to do first.
Without a word, Senior Surrey dismounted the bike and walked forward as Butterfly motioned down the street. It was broad and straight, lined with neatly trimmed trees at its riverside edge. At its end was a platform overlooking the waterfall where the city’s river tumbled out to join its course back in the Outside. They walked along the edge of the street. Wind lifted spray at them, sprinkling their clothes and skin with small droplets. Down to the right, the waterfall disappeared under the heavy lid of the city walls, half hidden by a curtain of fine mist.
‘This is what you wanted me to see?’ asked Senior Surrey when they stopped at the platform at the end of the street. Water roared beneath them. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve been here before.’
Butterfly shook his head. He motioned to the towering grey-black wall in front of them. ‘That is what I wanted you to see.’
Senior Surrey raised his eyebrows. ‘The city walls? Again, I’ve seen those plenty of times.’
‘No,’ Butterfly said, his voice tight with anger. ‘I want you to see what is beyond them.’
Senior Surrey did not respond to that.
Butterfly pressed the gun to the back of his head, pushing him forward until he was against the railing lining the platform. ‘You made me come here once on a boat,’ Butterfly said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the water. ‘Following what I thought were the dead bodies of my parents and baby sister. For ten years, I thought they were dead. Ten years. Do you have any idea what that’s like?’
Senior Surrey said nothing.
‘I learnt to think of them
as dead,’ Butterfly continued. ‘Even when I actually met my mother and sister in the Outside a week ago, I thought they were ghosts. But I started to believe in them again. And then guess what happened.’ He pressed the gun harder against Senior Surrey’s head. ‘You took them from me again.’
Water dripped into Butterfly’s eyes. His hair, which lay across his forehead, was slick with river-spray. The feeling reminded him of something, and he hesitated for a moment as he cast his mind back, searching for the memory. It came to him like a hand reaching out to take his; kissing Silver in the woods outside Yasir’s village. He remembered the feeling of her lips, water running down their faces. The hope he had felt blooming inside their mouths. The feeling of coming home, the feeling of rightness.
And he remembered what came after.
Butterfly blinked, bringing himself back to the mist-filled platform at the edge of the city. ‘Climb,’ he said, motioning at the railing.
Senior Surrey was as composed as ever. ‘As you wish.’ He climbed over the railing, holding himself in place, and craned his head back to look at Butterfly. ‘If you want to kill me,’ he said, ‘there are more effective ways to do it.’
Butterfly shook his head. ‘I’m not going to have your death on my conscience. This way, you leave Neo whichever way. You might live. You might be killed. But I’m not going to be the one that makes that decision. I’ll leave it up to them.’ He nodded up at the sky.
Senior Surrey smiled. ‘You’re sounding rather like a Red.’
‘Good,’ Butterfly said. ‘Some of the best people I know are Reds.’
Senior Surrey turned back to the water. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and then jumped.
Butterfly looked away from the churning water that had swallowed Senior Surrey’s body. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to feel, but as he walked back to the motorbike, he felt his body sagging with relief. Warm tears clouded his eyes, and he knew that it was over.
Back in the Council District, Silver was fighting alongside a group of Pigeons and Ghosts who were storming Council House.
It was a small building on a street parallel to Noda Parkway. A large number of Council members were being protected inside it, and the Pigeons and Ghosts were outside, attempting to break through the barrier of soldiers. Bullets sprayed the air like metal raindrops. They tore through the city with high-pitched screams that almost deafened Silver as she and the group advanced on the building. She let her Elite instincts take over. Her hand moved as of its own accord, as though her gun was a magnet that pulled only towards soldiers. She was one of the most skilful shooters there, and although the group were making good headway, more and more of their number were falling as enemy fire found their mark.
‘Fall back!’ cried the female Ghost leading the group.
Silver didn’t know who the woman was or where Joza had gone, but she wanted to help where she could, and these were the first people she’d run into after leaving the Stacks.
The group fell back behind a building to the left, pressing themselves up against the wall, panting.
‘We need to place a smallbomb,’ said the female Ghost. ‘To clear our way through.’
‘I’ll do it.’ A young Red man stepped forward. From the look of his clothes, Silver guessed he was a member of the Pigeons.
The female Ghost nodded. She turned to Silver, her eyes sharp. ‘You cover him – your aim is excellent. Shoot the bomb when it’s placed, then move across to the right of the building. We’ll come from the left, ready to enter after the explosion.’
‘Understood,’ said Silver.
At once, the female Ghost passed the small explosive to the Red and he darted from out from behind the wall. Silver followed close behind. She barely thought as she ran, shooting swiftly at the masked soldiers that fired at them.
They were just at the steps to the front of the building when the Red tripped. He straightened quickly, but a round of bullets had already found him. His body fell still. The soldiers turned their attention to Silver but she dodged their fire, running to the man’s body and grabbing the smallbomb from his hand.
Bullets flicked off the ground around her as she darted up the steps. At the doors to the building, one of the soldiers guarding them moved and she slammed into him, her knee connecting with his stomach. Silver turned to take down the others when hands grabbed her round the waist, lifting her up.
‘Hold your fire!’ a deep voice commanded the soldiers.
It was Allum.
He twisted Silver round and slammed her against the wall of the building. His dark eyes were cold. He held her up by her neck, and Silver could almost feel her bones being crushed beneath his hands.
‘I defended you,’ he said. There was no booming laugh now, no affectionate cry of ‘Baby Silver!’ Hardness and anger had replaced all of that. ‘When Ember and Senior Surrey thought you and Butterfly were working for an anti-birthchip group, I defended you both. I didn’t believe them until they showed me the evidence – your birthchip records, the Limpets boy’s testimony. I didn’t believe them,’ he said again, as though saying it would make it true.
Silver was still clutching the smallbomb in her left hand. With the other – her gun had dropped to the floor when Allum had got hold of her – she clawed at his fingers round her neck. A pulsing red light had crept into her vision. ‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Let me explain –’
‘They are making Taiyo fight!’ Allum roared. ‘Even if she is an Elite, she is still just a child. She isn’t ready for battle. But because of the destruction you brought to the city, they are sending her out to her death!’
There was a flicker of movement from behind his head. Silver saw the female Ghost running for cover to a statue at the side of the street, and then she leant out, signalling to Silver. None of the soldiers seemed to have seen her; they were too intent on Silver and Allum’s confrontation. The female Ghost made a throwing motion with her hand, and Silver knew in an instant what she wanted her to do.
‘What was so important to you to risk your Elite family’s lives?’ Allum squeezed Silver’s neck harder. ‘Our lives?’
Tears filled her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Allum,’ she whispered. She wished she could explain it all to him. She wished she could open her mind and take her memories into her hands, giving them to him to look at so he could understand. But there was not enough time and not enough words, and she only had that one second to look into her friend’s eyes before –
Smash!
The glass doors to the building shattered as bullets whipped through them. Allum loosened his grip just enough for Silver to swing her arm round, and she threw the smallbomb as hard as she could through the broken doors. Then the female Ghost was running up the steps, her gun searching for the bomb.
Butterfly was walking towards the Council District. He’d taken the motorbike back from the waterfall on the city’s eastern edge as far as he could before having to walk. He could have flown, but it seemed a perverse thing to do when there were bodies lying still on the ground.
The ruined streets smelt of gunpowder and burnt things. Shattered glass crunched beneath his boots. Ash and debris drifted down from above like a ghostly rain, and walking through it he felt as though it was the dead whispering to him. Once Butterfly would have gone to them, would have given up his body to the promises of darkness. But now the thought of Silver was like a glowing thread, holding him to the world of the living.
He stopped when he reached the river’s Inner Circle. Flames burned wetly in the water, charred bits of debris puncturing the reflections flickering in its surface. The fire of the buildings behind him bloomed across the water. It was like looking into someone else’s dream. Beyond the water were the darkly shining buildings of the Council District.
Butterfly felt a stab of anger at the sight of the place that had taken almost everything from him. He took out his gun, crossing the bridge. Soldiers were clustered round Council House, and he saw with a sudden clenching feeling in hi
s gut that Silver was there too, right at the centre of it all, Allum holding her against the front of the building.
Butterfly began to run. He reached behind him to pull down the zip in his jumpsuit that ran between his shoulderblades. At once, his wings burst out and he pushed off the ground, launching himself into the air and speeding towards Silver.
Below, Ghosts and Pigeons moved out from a side street, running towards Council House. Their bullets shattered its wide glass doors. Butterfly saw Silver swing her arm round, throwing something into the building.
He forced himself to fly faster. He was almost at Council House now, its steps a blur beneath him. Wind screamed past his ears, the roar of the battle swelling as he gave a final hard beat of his wings, reaching out his hands –
Butterfly grabbed Allum, throwing him off Silver and picking her up in his arms. He pushed off the wall of the building to swerve round, flying away from Council House as quickly as he could, even though his whole body burnt with pain at the effort of carrying her.
An instant later, there was a deafening roar as the bomb exploded. The world burst open. Butterfly was thrown, riding the furious wave of the blast, but he forced himself to hold onto Silver, to keep her close to his chest, and the last thing he thought was how he’d been just seconds away from failing to save her from the explosion, from losing her forever, when an iron fist of pain burst its way into his skull and his mind snapped off into darkness.
The explosion was over in a heartbeat. Silver sat up slowly where the blast had thrown her. She felt the heat of the explosion at her back and heard the frenzied shouts of the Pigeons and Ghosts as they ran past her towards Council House, but they sounded distant, and she felt disconnected from it all. A thick cloud of smoke swirled around her, obscuring her view. She didn’t understand how just a minute ago Allum had been pressing her against the wall. Butterfly seemed to have come from nowhere. She hadn’t even had time to feel relieved that he’d saved her before the explosion had brought them crashing back to the ground.
